


hunters in the night, living under shattered light

by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish



Series: in the days that follow (i will) [2]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Multi, [shrugs], fingers crossed kids, we're just gonna go for this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-03-30 01:17:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19031785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish/pseuds/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish
Summary: if there’s a method to your madnessoh dark one, won’t you tellbecause here you’ll find no gladnessbehind hellish bars of my witch’s cell





	1. sleep under my roof to see the good in you

**Author's Note:**

> Status check: I still don’t know what I’m doing.  
> You don’t _have_ to read part one, I guess, but it’s better than this and more fun. Also, it will probably get a little confusing as the chapters start to weave together.  
> Honestly, who knows where this is going?

As a child, Prudence always liked hiding places. Places she could belong, if only for a little while. Surreal seams in the fabric of life through which she could disappear. She could spend hours burrowed deep into crevices and labyrinthine libraries, wandering in search of her own story.

Now, just being indoors grates on her nerves. Something shrieks fanatical in the world beyond, the call for the chase relentless and rigid, railing against the inside of her skull night and day.

Ignoring it makes her antsy, hands fidgeting for want of a meaningful task. Or maybe just to have her father’s throat clutched between them.

Every day ends at her sisters’ bedsides. She owes them too much, apologies first and foremost. For abandoning the only true family she’s ever known. She doesn’t think the shame will ever end. On worse days, she wishes the Pit would just open and swallow her whole. End this torturous waiting.

Prudence lends herself to Sister Hilda’s purposes instead. She’s had to resort to first name references to circumvent any more confusion. Satan knows they’ve had enough of that to last them several lifetimes.

Lilith knows?

Case in point.

She’s a menace in the kitchen, but she does dusting and sweeping with a flick of her wrist before tending to the witches still laid out in the Spellmans’ parlor. That day is a blur of betrayal and bloodshed. She tries not to think about it, but her father has always been a cancerous constant. Why should that change now?

She helps until she’s smothered in regret and self-pity, and this new claustrophobia sets in like a carnivorous beast stalking circles around the dimming campfire of her sanity.

When that sets in, the attic is the only place with air. She climbs the stairs like a flickering candle, and he’s sitting on his bed, a book in his lap, bare-chested with soft flannel pajama pants. Is it really that late?

There are four clocks on his cluttered walls. Greendale, London, Tokyo, Sydney.

She’s never gotten the chance to ask why. All the other times she’s been his guest there they’ve been preoccupied with other endeavors.

“Prudence.”

“Ambrose.”

They’re too alike, matching past comfort.

But she’s made herself welcome to his bed and body, if not always his soul, so she spreads herself over the muscular planes of his shoulders and trails thin scratches down his biceps. He’s reading intently and after a while, she peeps at the yellowed pages, curious. Handwritten in ink, with flowers blooming in the margins, it’s a book of poetry, tear-stains strewn throughout contorting the paper into rolling hills of verse. She recognizes the script from notes she collected for her father.

“You wrote this?” It’s terribly sad, each word squirming under her eye, miserable and lonely despite the surrounding others. Much like their author.

“A long time ago,” he answers, his tongue like sandpaper, rough and raw. “I’m trying to remember what it was like. Being free.” She nods against his neck, age and sorrow an intoxicating cologne on coffee skin.

He’s a novelty in her world. Sheltered in this homey oasis for nearly a century until it’s become a prison through his eyes. It’s been some time since either of them had something truly new.

And now all Hell has broken loose and new things never seem to stop. They might be right in warning to be careful what you wish for.

Dew drops onto the wrinkled page, and Prudence closes the book, taking his hands and guiding him to the stained glass sun above the blanketed field of mattress. The latch clicks, and she eases the window open, slipping limb by limb out onto the roof, toes nimble and light on the shingles. Ambrose follows, and they sit side by side by the chimney. Greendale is small enough that the town doesn’t interrupt their view of the night sky, and they gaze up at the stars in silence until both pairs of black eyes are dry.

“I have to go after Father Blackwood,” Prudence tells Orion’s distant silhouette. “I have to save my sister.”

“Your brother, too,” Ambrose nods to Canis Major. “The world, for that matter. It’s too dangerous to leave him free. Or to go alone. You should put together a hunting party.”

“I thought you might be interested.”

“Me?” She turns to him.

“What better weapon than vengeful pursuit? I need someone I can trust. Someone who knows Blackwood. I’m cumbersome and redemptionless here,” she confides. “You’re looking for freedom. The woods are lawless, as is this sort of manhunt, and we’ve not much in the way of other options. Someone’s got to deal with Blackwood, and I can’t stand being here another moment while he runs wild with his loathsome tenants of Judas and my siblings.”

Ambrose stares at her, twin hearts pounding in their chests. The house is asleep below them, and it’s a marvel they haven’t awakened anyone with their beating schemes.

There are worlds between them, and trust is not the two-way street Ambrose has always known it should be. He’s seen this girl as clay, molded in the hands and lies of those around her, much as she’d like to believe she’s carved from obsidian and marble. He knows the hair-trigger on her treachery and how easy it would be for her to lose herself in this game. She’s like a bloodhound, loyal to whoever holds her leash and rushing after strong, offending scents. Skilled warlock that he is, he could tame her, with time and care, things neither of them have much of. His Aunt Hilda’s post-arrest warnings about wolves in sheep’s clothing and the wariness that must accompany laying with snakes echo in his ears, despite its four-score removal from the present.

He reasons with his aunt’s philosophy, reminding himself Prudence was not alone in her deference to Blackwood. After all, he knows all too well what it is to be fatherless. A knot of would-be forgiveness tightens in his chest.

It is not the Spellman way, to run away when one’s loved ones are in need. He can hardly justify forsaking his family in the name of revenge. Saving the world, however, is a hippogriff of a different color.

Isn’t it high time he played the part of Chosen One? Perhaps not that of any god or king but of Prudence. No hero can deny his fate, or so the prophecies say, but with this shared crusade, maybe they can write their own destinies.

The gauntlet has been thrown.

And it is Ambrose Spellman’s turn to take it up.


	2. i will teach you (not to speak my name)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay have some cliches and sloppiness because if i don't post this chapter/get back to writing i might fade into the ether

They have very little time to prepare. The longer they wait, the further Blackwood can get. Time is of the essence.

Ambrose insists that he be the one to tell his aunties. He owes them that much.

They sit in Zelda’s study because the parlor is stuffed with recovering witches. He watches as they settle, these two strange, wonderful women who’ve shaped him into the man and warlock he is today. Looking at them, the anchors of his youth, he realizes that he’s no longer the frightened, powerless child he was when he first crossed their threshold.

Hilda and Zelda made sure of that.

He tells them he’s leaving to hunt down the man who hurt them. And it’s true. That’s why he’s going, that’s his purpose. But they know him too well. Two pairs of understanding eyes cut through the opacity of revenge and know he won’t be coming back. When all this is over, he’ll finally be free to spread his wings and _live_. Hilda smiles and squeezes him into a hug, already rambling about the seeking charms she’ll send along, to focus their path and lead them to the son of a bitch. Over her shoulder, he catches Zelda thumbing away a tear.

They balance each other, as always, and he’s never been more grateful for his mothers.

It will never be the same.

 

 

He can’t leave without laying a protective circle around the house. One foot in front of the other, toe to heel, all the way around the perimeter that once was his prison. He hasn’t decided yet if he’ll miss it. He bids farewell to the gardens and the cemetery and the lone lamppost standing at the mouth of the lane. These will be his stomping grounds no more. He looks beyond, into the woods and the world, and sees a vast adventure, a frontier in need of his exploration.

Luke promised their adventures would be hand in hand, heart to heart.

He tries not to think about him too much. On top of everything else, it’s too great load to carry. But he wonders what sort of loyalty tethered the warlock to Blackwood. Tried or true?

He’ll never know now. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Ambrose wonders, too, about the truth that once laid between them in his bed. Midnight hauntings and tea with Aunt Hilda revealed the concocted nature of their connection. She meant well, she always does, but now the question hangs over his head like the guillotine he so narrowly escaped. But everything else is already uncertain, so he could call it consistency.

One foot in front of the other and the drumbeats of his footsteps roar over it all.

They leave tonight.

 

 

Admittedly, Ambrose is her second favorite of the Spellman clan.

Hilda reviles her, with her weaknesses on display in a most mortal fashion. Her bright cardigans are gauche, her dresses like patchwork tents. Every aspect of her is so repulsively domestic and simple. She may be skilled, but one would never know it to look at her, and personally, Prudence thinks that’s a foolish disservice. Playing to one’s strengths in order to mask one’s weaknesses is the way of the world, and the younger Spellman sister’s disregard for that ideal rankles her.

Sabrina’s grown on her since taking leave of her naivety, but still the half-breed’s presence is irritating. She’s blind to her privilege and has no appreciation for tradition or her family. What Prudence wouldn’t have given to live that charmed, sheltered life? Jealousy boils at the thought, though she’d never admit it.

Luck is certainly dumb. Reward on merit keeps the wheels of fortune turning, and Prudence has done more than her share of waiting for it to fall in her favor. Sabrina’s come into her fire lately, but she doesn’t begin to deserve the fanfare and honor of being a Spellman.

That revered name, the one she holds above the scourge of Blackwood, the mantle that Zelda carries like the crown of Hell. And still Prudence can’t bring herself to say goodbye.

She waves Ambrose off and returns to her home. Her prison?

Perhaps both.

She’s alone at the Academy, the ghosts having long taken their leave. She wonders if their parents cried. And if she'll cry when she slits her father's throat like she did Dezmelda’s.

His statue glares down at her shadow stretched across the pentagonal floor, and in a moment of blistering rage--after all, she has plenty of that these days--she spits in his marbled face. And like wildfire, she can’t stop.

She smashes each trophy lining the Academy’s halls with the slurred name etched upon it. She burns blindingly bright until her hands bleed, losing her fury in the muddy abyss of pain. Silver swords gleam in a cross above his stripped and shredded bed, and their weight in her open palms fills her stomach with lead and loneliness. There will be no more sitting still behind glass, purposeless and mute.

She screams into the dark, a daughter of night once more, and lashes at his ornate mirrors, his oaken armoire. Its doors tumble down and a crunch of music sheathes itself between her ribs.

The music box. The tiny dancer with her sweetened face, her strawberry curls, her dead eyes.

It’s crushed underfoot.

 

 

Her sisters meet her weeping at the edge of the trees. They know, they understand, and she loves them for it. Embracing in tears, they whisper with eyes closed and open, but when they split apart, Prudence’s hands leave theirs, folded into Ambrose’s. Her sisters kiss her cheeks and disappear.

And then there are two. They gaze into the forest side by side.

Witches have beaten ways through these woods for centuries. Not with magic, but with resolution.

They take the first step together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAYIN' ALIVE
> 
> STAYIN' ALIVE

**Author's Note:**

> [Spice Girls voice]  
> 🎼Yooooooo  
> Tell me what you thought, whatchu really really thought♩  
> (Sorry, it appeared in my head weeks ago, I couldn't help it.)
> 
> Love and apologies, Ruby


End file.
